It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.

Obama Closing Guantanamo AND CIA Prisons AND Ending Torture: Now That's Change I Can Believe In!

According to the New York Times, President Barack Obama is set to sign executive orders that order not only the closing of the indefinite detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but also the closing of the network of secret CIA prisons around the world that service a similar function of indefinite detention. Thanks to the expansion of closings to those CIA prisons, Obama’s executive order marks not only the closing of Guantanamo in a nominal sense, but also the closing of the age of Guantanamo-like practices by the United States. In addition, Obama’s executive orders will require the CIA to abstain from coercion and torture in their interrogations. Taken together, these moves by President Obama will move the United States back toward compliance with the 6th and 8th amendments to the United States Constitution.

I have remaining concerns. Will the shutting of these prisons result in the definitive ending of the practice of indefinite detention without charge, or will detainees be simply shoved into prisons for incarceration without conviction on criminal charges? Civil libertarians will have to keep a close eye on the fate of detainees.

Despite those concerns, I am jubilant that in his first days in office Barack Obama is using his presidential power to yank this country in real and significant ways back toward constitutionality. This is change I can believe in, and I am pleased as punch.

7 comments to Obama Closing Guantanamo AND CIA Prisons AND Ending Torture: Now That's Change I Can Believe In!

Obama is already showing he is an imbecile! I do not believe in torture but you do not telegraph to your enemies what an idiot,already he is in the first few days. Administrative note: This comment was cut and paste as spam in several articles, many completely unrelated to the content of the comment. We have left this one version fo the comment, and deleted the rest. Take its spammy value for what it is.

LEFTIST Congress? You mean the Congress that refused to even look into impeaching George W. Bush, the Congress that helped Bush pass the Big Brother spying FISA Amendments Act, the Congress that’s about to use hundreds of billions of dollars in TAX CUTS to throw money at the problem of the recession?

Does anyone remember how the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at the same level in the spring of 2004 that it was in the spring of 2002? Does anyone bother to check that no American stock market tripled in the Spring of 2003? Does anyone remember that Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 was signed into law when there were only three weeks left to go in the Spring, when most of the rise in the stock market had already happened? Does anyone remember the relationship between causality and time?

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